Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 102683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
“That’s nice—what time is it there?”
She still hasn’t figured out the time change, can never tell if it’s day or night or afternoon when she calls me. Sometimes she’ll ring me at one in the morning thinking it’s dinnertime, or at four AM thinking it’s noon.
But maybe she won’t have to figure it out much longer. Not after what I’m about to propose.
“It’s just after lunch. One thirty.”
“Oh good. I’m heading into work soon, though I don’t know if they’ll have much for me to do. I might get sent home early, which sucks since I need the money.”
“Sorry babe, that is a pisser.” But it’s also a great segue into the next part of the conversation. “Dad and I were talking and—well. I’m just going to throw this out there since it’s been on my mind.”
Neither of us have been able to sleep, texting each other at all hours of the day and night, making the situation that much worse. Making me miss her more.
There aren’t enough messages and video chats that can fix being an ocean apart.
“You know how much I miss you,” I begin.
Georgia nods. “I miss you, too. I miss you like crazy, but…” It hardly matters when you’re thousands of miles away.
“See, Georgie, that’s the thing. I can come back—Dad is willing to let me come back to the States. He’s giving me six months to work remotely, to figure out what we’re going to do, you and I.” I begin rambling, speaking a mile a minute, her smile fading the more I babble. “We can get a place for the next few months, and we can fill out paperwork—whatever you want to do. I can work from home and you can keep looking for a better job or internship, and six months is plenty of time to sort through the tangle. What do you think?”
She hesitates.
Speaks slowly. “You would do that?”
“Yes.” Of course. “When Dad suggested it, I almost fell out of my chair. They really liked you when you were here, Georgia, even if we cut ties at the end of it all and go our separate ways.”
I’m never going to find another girl like her, but I would try.
“But I’d only have six months. That would be it. And I…my life is going to be here, Georgia. I can’t make promises about that. I’ve always wanted to work for my dad and take over his business with Jack, and I don’t think that is ever going to change. But I’m willing—no. You’re important, and…shite. I love you. I don’t just want to leave you there. I want…”
She’s nodding along as if she understands, but she can’t possibly know that my heart is thumping out of my chest and my palms are sweating and I keep watching for someone in the office to walk by and overhear me pouring my heart out like an idiot.
Shite, someone actually could be listening; these walls all have eyes and ears and will probably talk, too.
“I can’t ask you to come back here, Ashley. You have a job there and your parents are important and—”
“You’re not asking me to come back, Georgie. It’s what I want to do.”
Her head gives a little shake. “I know, but…”
One of the executive assistants is approaching from behind me, stopping my girlfriend’s next few words.
At a leisurely pace, Beth strolls along with a notebook in her hand, obviously pretending not to notice I’m on a video chat with a young woman.
Georgia and I wait until she’s out of sight, and I lean in closer to the monitor.
“Look, I should go. Think about it, okay? I’ll only come back if you want me to.”
“Of course I want you to…it just feels so selfish. You’d be giving up everything to come back here and—what? Watch me work at the same basic job I’ve had for three summers while I scramble to find something better? Or an internship that barely pays anything? I’m still going to be stuck living with my parents.”
“Have you told them yet?”
She’s quiet. “No.”
I get it.
She sees no sense in getting them all worked up if we’re not going to stay together. It can just be a distant memory swept under the rug, and twenty years from now, she can tell the children she has with someone else that Once upon a time, when Mom was wild and crazy in college, she married her roommate in Vegas.
Then again, I wasn’t planning on telling my folks either—they found out by accident because they have access to my bank account.
My girlfriend nibbles on her lower lip, something she does when she’s anxious.
“Don’t fret about it just yet, okay? Just think it over. I’ll text you when I’m home tonight.”
“Okay, I’ll try not to.”
I can see that she’s lying—she’s one hundred percent going to worry herself about it all day long, but there is nothing I can do about that.